The Persephone Files
by CarmineDuvale
Summary: Dramione Drabbles. COMPLETE
1. Like Toy Soldiers

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **T**

_Read and, if you can spare a minute and a little piece of advice, review._

**Like Toy Soldiers**

Here they are - the man and the woman - watching the world breaking in half.

"Do you think we'll ever return?"

He rips his gaze away from the phantasmagorical show of flames that burns through everything he's ever known and fixes those impossibly ashen, impossibly perceptive eyes on her. She watches the same performance of the macabre as he did, with furrowed brows and pressed-lips, with her wandless hand twitching slightly, with her clothes burnt and with her arms bruised and with her mind eaten by the knowledge that everything is out of her control. She watches it as he did and still, she doesn't, for where he saw only familiarity she sees family and while he was emptied of feeling and staring with the glassy expression of a doll, she's fuller than ever with emotion and with spirit and is staring like a woman possessed and like a woman defeated.

Honestly, he doesn't and will never have what to come back for, but deep down, under layers of selfishness and self-preservation, deep down where he likes to pretend it's just an empty hole pulsing in void, deep down where he has a heart that seems to work like it should only around her, there he also understands her question on an altogether different level. And he knows what she wants to hear.

"If you want to."

But she, he had learned long ago, even longer than he has cared for her or than he had stopped hating her, she is not a being for simple, coddling answers, and fragile as she may seem, prefers to be stabbed by hard truths. So naturally, she corrects him, without even taking her eyes off the scene of Hogwarts crumbling, without even letting her nervousness betray her know-it-all instincts.

"If there is still something to come back to, you mean."

Her voice is not harsh, but there is something behind it, like sadness laced with steel, a determination, he realizes, that it's both endearing and frustrating and that makes him want to take care of her and shake her at the same time. That big heart of hers, he knows, still struggles with this clinical approach.

"It's out of our hands now, dove. We played his part long enough."

She knows he's right and she hates it, hates his ability of shutting down his care for the world. She can't stop wishing she could do more, even when she did more than enough, even when she gave more than was hers to give. She still wants to take another part of his burden, feels the compulsion of protecting him until the very end, that boy with the bright green eyes and messy hair that has been her friend for so long.

But she can't stop him from facing reality now, not when she fought this war in his place for so long. It's their battle from here on, of the people who stayed safely between the walls of their castle while she destroyed pieces of soul and fell in love with traitors of the Dark. It's their war to win and their victory to take while she - both the general and lone soldier of so many campaigns of their cause – has to lay down her arms and turn her back on them. It's time. Their time. Her time.

She turns her head towards him, takes in his blond hair caked with blood and his swollen eyes and his lips curved in that so loved cynical smile. It's his time also, of the man who grew up to be much more than she could have dared to hope.

"You're right. Out part is done." She takes his hand and he squeezes her fingers gently. "Let's go."

In the dawn of the last battle, in the dawn of what's to be the final day, a man and a woman turn their back on the world that it's breaking in half. And while Harry Potter puts an end to the War and makes himself a hero, Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy, with the Dark Lord's blood on their hands, disappear into nothingness.


	2. Hopeful

**As usual, when I post something new I tend to get overly excited and want to post more.**

**Jemima: **Thank you for your kind words. I hope to see you here again and hope you will enjoy this one too.

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **T**

_Read and, if you can spare a minute and a little piece of advice, review._

**Hopeful**

He reads about it in a two-months-old newspaper, like any far-from-respectable but half-lucky prisoner.

"Death Eater scum," the passing guard sneers, watching him staring at the front page. "That's just one of the many things for which you and your kind should rot in this hell."

He doesn't give away having heard the man, but as the footsteps lose themselves down the interminable corridors of Azkaban, the wave of guilt that washes over him leaves Draco emotionally paralyzed.

He's ashamed indeed and he's so full of sentiment right now that, for the first time in almost a year, he fancies himself human and the discomfort of doing so on misery's behalf makes him viciously ill.

* * *

The nights are the worst, as he now associates them with her. Then, he's so encompassed by everything, so aware of sensation, so drowned in feeling that he wants to claw at his chest and shred it to pieces, this state of being a person that haunts him in his sleep. He longs to be empty again, empty and lifeless and half-dead, for that is all that gets him through the long days of his sentence.

He can't.

* * *

He visits her the first day he's out, but it's already been a year since that article and he fully expects her accommodations to be different.

He's wrong and, apparently, still a coward who doesn't have it in himself to give voice to the mistakes. Instead, he watches her silently for more than an hour, stuck in the doorway of the hospital room, eyes glued to the sad, lonely silhouette on the bed.

Then, he sees the book on the nightstand, the pristine looking hardcover, obviously never even cracked open, but that she will never be able to read. And knowing he is not welcome, knowing that no amount of words he could utter will make this right, he just takes it and starts reading to her.

She recognizes his voice and startles for a moment. But then Granger relaxes into her pillows and he just reads on and on and on.

* * *

By the sixth visit, they finish the book and nothing else, so he steels himself and opens his mouth. That's it. The moment for the most important conversation of Draco Malfoy's life.

"Listen, Granger…"

"I know," she says before he can get more words out. "But I honestly don't blame you."

He is dumbfounded. That's it? All his anger and guilt and resentment and…

"Could you bring a new book tomorrow?"

Hope. Draco didn't experience it in a long time, but with just one question, he is inexplicably high on it.

* * *

By the fifteenth visit, he knows something isn't right. By this point, he sits with her a few hours daily and has learned to read her as only a Slytherin can. He also got more comfortable and, he supposes, a little more courageous.

"Hermione." He stopped calling her Granger sometimes last week. "Why are you still here?"

"Hmm?"

"I mean, why aren't you staying with a friend? And where is Potter? Why is he never here? And Weasley? Weren't you two an item for a time there?"

Her face darkens and then smoothes over. She's good, he has to admit, as it seems like the Granger who wore her heart on her sleeve has long since been buried. It's just her hands that betray her, a little shaky, a little clammy-looking.

"They moved on."

She doesn't offer another explanation and he doesn't press for one but, a few days later, when he sees the Lighting-Marked Bastard coming towards him down the street, he crosses to the other side simply to stop himself from giving the man a matching scar.

* * *

Another year later, she moves in.

She's been his girlfriend from some time now, ever since he entered into an altercation with Ronald that almost sent him back to Azkaban. Strangely, she was grateful to him for cutting down all her loose ties with that former life. It was, she felt and feels, high time to do so.

These days, Draco's chest is still full of emotion, but, while still unused with it, he doesn't want to suffocate it anymore.

These days, Hermione smiles more and laughs more and, for the first time since Bellatrix's torture left her permanently blind, she's truly, unabashedly hopeful.


	3. Mother Knows Best

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **K**

_Please read and review ^_^._

**Mother Knows Best**

"Mother, I assure you that…"

But the woman is having none of it and keeps and keeps pleading.

"I know you think you're happy, Draco, but I can see you're pretending! And how could you even begin to feel joy, associating yourself with a girl like that? Don't you see, son? Don't you trust me, Draco? I'm your Mother! I know best!"

She really doesn't, but she won't see reason and he just doesn't know what to do anymore.

* * *

McGonagall's approval is begrudging at best, but it's enough to get them here, in front of the silly tapestry of the even sillier wizard teaching the trolls how to dance.

And here they wait, in heavy, pressing silence for the door to appear.

Narcissa tries to talk once or twice, but Draco shakes his head every time. He knows this is the final thread their relationship is hanging from, even if she doesn't seem to have grasped the concept yet, so while his Mother is happily oblivious, he feels like a vortex of unquiet is spiraling his insides.

The Room of Hidden Objects hasn't changed much, even if it suffered through Fiendfyre and death, and this stillness of it, like the place is still blocked in an undetermined past, seems to Draco strangely fitting. Like his Mother, the Room finds it impossible to move on.

They stop in front of the Mirror and for a second, the looking glass just reflects their pale faces back at them.

Then, as always, it changes.

* * *

A month later, Narcissa is still not entirely convinced. But as she watches her son tying his life with the one of Hermione Granger, the both of them cocooned in their happy glow, she finally understands is really not her place to meddle. After all, her Draco is not a little boy anymore. Instead he is a man, the first one in centuries to look into the Mirror of Erised and see his own reflection smiling back.


	4. Origami Blues

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **T**

_Reviewing is loving ^_^. Also, I was thinking about writing a completely AU fic, made almost entirely of drabbles and I was wondering if anyone would be interested in reading it. Until this point, it involves Draco, Hermione and the House of Ravenclaw._

* * *

**Their story unfolds like a lifeless origami.**

**First Year**

They don't talk, they just stare, but while his glare is strong enough to convey his hate her eyes follow him with mostly innocent dislike. At this point in time, he's just a blipping point on the far end of her radar, so Hermione doesn't care that much and goes on with her days.

**Second Year**

"Mudblood," he snarles and – despite what her friends choose to think and the image she projects to the world – the word defines the way she sees herself for the longest time.

**Third Year**

"You foul, loathsome, evil little cockroach."

Her fist breaks his nose with a satisfying crunch and she feels that, on the big scale of hurting each other, they are finally even.

**Fourth Year**

He does spout lie after lie to Rita Skeeter, but they leave the taste of cinder in his mouth.

So he tells himself it's the damned periwinkle dress.

It has nothing to do with the fact that, deep down, he thinks the girl wearing it - with her impure lineage and know-it-all behavior - is far too good for the likes of Potter the Saviour or Krum the Flying Duck or – something he won't ever admit aloud – for Draco Malfoy, the Amazing Bouncing Ferret.

**Fifth Year**

She struggles madly in his hold trying to claw at his face and - in a moment of weakness - he thanks Merlin and Morgana and whoever else is up there that she can't reach her wand. He's not conceited enough to presume she won't blow him to smithereens.

"I swear if you don't let me go, Malfoy…"

There's a swift kick that threatens his ability to have children, but he manages to duck in time while pressing her against the wall.

"Would you stop already, you rabid kitten? The old Toad is about to find out about your little playgroup and it's not going to be pretty if you don't take your army friends and leave now."

Her eyes go wide with something akin to shock.

"You're **warning** us?"

He doesn't blame her as her wonder has nothing on his. It's, as he's told himself many times already, the damned periwinkle dress.

**Sixth Year**

She keeps trying to talk to him, been since the middle of last year, but he evades her easily enough until one day he can't anymore.

So when she corners him in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom he quite literally spills the beans along with one or two tears that must not be mentioned.

**Seventh Year**

The Battle is vicious and nothing else is worth saying. But with Granger at his side, he still trusts into a future.

**The origami swan folds itself back up and - looking into the brown eyes of his curly-haired blonde daughter – Draco makes it fly into the sky.**


	5. Veela Unleashed - Part 1

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **K**

_Please read and review3._

**Veela Unleashed **

"They were out of Replenishing Potion by the time we got back to Headquarters, so they used this healing spell to… I suppose to freshen and sterilize the blood caked on my arm and make it retreat back into the wound. The scar formed instantly. I can only presume that's when some of your aunt's blood mixed with mine."

Granger's voice is monotonous and devoid of any emotion and she doesn't even attempt to meet his crestfallen look. She just stares straight ahead, through the open entrance of the parlor and – too late he realizes - at the closed, bolted door of the room she had been tortured into. Suddenly strung with self-consciousness, he shuffles slightly to the right, trying mostly in vain to block her view.

"How is that even possible?" his Mother demands scandalized.

"She cut her hand with the same knife she used on me before… before. Said she'll show me how the blood of someone worth living looks like."

Narcissa averts her gaze after that answer and falls into a deathly silence that only increases the awkwardness of the situation.

"But it's impossible," he argues. "The Veela gene doesn't manifest itself just like that. A drop of blood isn't enough to turn you into a mixed-race. It's absurd to even suggest that."

For the first time since she arrived, Granger truly meets his gaze and something akin to defiance shines into those dead-dead eyes.

"Fleur says I must have had some latent Veela traits passed down from a late ancestor and that the intrusion of similar magic forced them to manifest. She presumes a Squib carrying them married into the family somewhere down the line and kept the secret when none of her children manifested any power."

It's satisfaction, he finally identifies it. It's her way of proving to him - the person who thought her about prejudice and dirtiness of blood - that despite what his crazy aunt had carved into her arm, she's as deserving of magic as he or anyone else is.

His face burns with shame, but Draco is still wildly confused.

"I don't understand, Granger? What do you exactly want from me?"

She quickly looks away again and he just feels himself starting to switch from empathy to annoyance when his Mother decides is time to shatter the quiet.

"It's very rare for someone to have two sets of Veela genes, Draco, especially when Veelas are such competitive, disruptive creatures. Their magic will fight for dominance and, if not appeased, they will destroy the carrier's body in the process. As it my sister's blood waking her, Miss Granger must mate into the Black family so her magical line is tied to ours. Otherwise, Bellatrix's magical essence will poison her from the inside. Our Veela ," she adds taking in the Muggle-born's hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, "is a very capricious, very violent spirit."

There is stillness after those words. And, as the truth downs on him with frightening clarity, Granger's tightly pressed lips only confirm it. Their fates, from now on, are irrevocably intertwined.


	6. Cat - Girlfriend Cat

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **K**

Something easy, something light, something like a bird in flight. I'm such a poet.

_Please read and review ^_^._

**Cat. Girlfriend Cat **

There was something hypnotic about watching a cat cleaning itself.

Especially when it wasn't really a cat.

Especially when you knew it wasn't really a cat.

Especially when you not only knew it wasn't really a cat, but also that _she_ was your girlfriend of two years, six month and fourteen days and the reason she was impersonating a mouse-eating animal was because of you.

"You know, Granger, you don't have to do this."

She purred questioningly and he took it as a sign to go on.

"I know things have been shit since we got engaged, what with my parents and the new wards around the Manor."

She rubbed against his legs, purring some more.

"But we'll find another way to get through them and contact Mother."

Granger jumped into lap.

"I mean, I know we decided that - since there are no wards specifically designed to guard against your presence - you should be the one to try to sneak in, but I think this is a bit extreme. What if the anti-Muggleborn charms still recognize your magical essence? What if you get caught? What if…?"

She moved her paw lightning-quick, four bloody gushes appeared on his hand and he yelped as girlfriend-cat curled onto his lap.

Draco took the message for what it really was and couldn't help smiling. He could practically hear Hermione's prissy voice into his head.

"_Stop worrying your pretty little head, blondie. I am the Brightest Cat of Our Age, you know?"_


	7. Breakers

**ChiffonShock **– I'm quite fond of that idea, too. I might try my hand at an one-shot sometime soon, but I'm writing another fic at the time

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **K**

**Breakers**

"You shatter me," he'd tell her from time to time, thumb rubbing gently against her wedding band.

"I don't, not yet," she'd answer and they would follow the kaleidoscopic light reflecting on the glass.

* * *

It's not easy, them coexisting.

They fight a lot.

They scream a lot.

Draco leaves a lot.

Hermione slams doors a lot.

They drink tea a lot and have rational conversations a lot and try a lot, and learn a lot and fail a lot.

They do a lot of things a lot, because they are the two most unlikely people to make a marriage work at all and still here they are, unraveling and untangling each other, drowning in each other, keeping each other afloat.

Some days, he thinks the need to do "a lot" governs their lives. She needs to change the world. He needs the world to stop. Impossible. Improbable.

They suffocate the other and this suffocation, then again, is good.

Their vicious circle keeps them busy and keeps the flow of time.

The world, he sometimes muses, is ready for none of their demands.

* * *

He had married her with a glass ring and lack of common sense.

"You hold my sanity," he'd whispered and they'd watched the light reflect on the band.


	8. Serenade

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **K**

_Please read and review ^_^_

**Serenade**

"I really don't think this is a good idea, Ron," Harry Potter said with apprehension, watching with a doubtful look as his best friend fumbled with the guitar. "You don't even know how to work that thing."

"Nonsense," Ronald Weasley answered cheerfully while the strings made a sound akin to that of a cat being slaughtered. "I just need a little warming up, you'll see."

Harry had a feeling it might take more than that to compensate for the abominable lack of musical talent the redhead had been _gifted_ with, but wisely chose another approach.

"You and Hermione have been broken up for more than a year, mate, and you both seemed fine all along. What brought this on? And, hell, what makes you thing this little..mmmm, _serenade_ will have her begging to take you back?"

The instrument gave a few cries of agony as Ron mulled over the question.

"I figured it was time to settle down, you know, and who better to do that with than 'Mione? And well, she always complained about how I wasn't romantic enough, or involved enough, or how I never planned any of our dates and other shit like that. I say, proposing to her like this would earn me brownie points and finally bring home that I'm willing to change."

"Shouldn't this decision have been taken, like, a year ago? You can't want to get back together just so your Mother can be happy you _settled down,_" Harry exclaimed exasperated. Until the words fully sank in. "What do you mean propose? You can't really be expecting her to…"

* * *

"So," Draco said from where he sat half naked on his secret girlfriend's bed. "Are you often graced with such dulcet tones?"

"Shut up," Hermione hissed from her obscure viewing spot, covered by the thick drapery. "What if he _hears_ you?"

"I'm just saying, Granger. Maybe that right there is the reason you don't see weasels chirping in the trees."

As Ron's bleating went on and on, Hermione couldn't help but agree. Merlin, what a disaster! And right when she and Draco were ready to go public!

"_I want my 'Mione back, 'Mione back, 'Mione back..."_


	9. Label

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **K**

_Don't know where this snippet came from but well_

**Label**

"Draco," his therapist says, "you might think that's not true but the people you surround yourself with define you."

And he does find it useless crap at the time.

Five years later though, in midst of proposing, he realizes that, like all good advice, it has stuck with him. And he is unbelievably grateful.

"Granger," he casually drawls, "be my label."

And with her eyes warming in remembrance she answers.

"Only if you'll be mine."


	10. Veela Unleashed - Part 2

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **T**

_I suggest you read Part one before reading this._

**Veela Unleashed**

**\- world stopping, world spinning -**

He catches her in the kitchens, bare-handedly eating raw meat while –huddled in a corner- the House Elves watch her with eyes big enough to swallow her. The image, strange and grotesque, is enough to give him pause.

Granger, he realizes after just one glance, has no control over her body and no idea what she's actually doing. She's a doll, a carrier, a vessel and the two Veelas inside are tearing her already fragile mind apart. Right in front of him, this woman who won a War with bigotry is at her lowest point yet.

And Draco, watching her decay, feels himself decaying as well.

"Granger," he tries gently, hoping to snap her out of her trance.

Guilt clenches his stomach in its fist and Granger gives no sign of acknowledging him, hearing him, sensing him. For the moment, she's lost to his reach.

"Hermione," he tries again, tongue tripping over the syllables of the name.

Nothing.

"Hermione," he snaps, his hands grasping her shoulders to shake her.

Dead stillness.

Dead quietness.

Dead eyes fix upon him, realization dawns, tears drop down her cheeks, blood drops down her chin and they mix and fall together and drop and drop and drop all over her clothes and all over the floor and she sobs and she screams and she wishes herself dead and him dead and everyone dead and words drop and drop and drop and the world freezes on its axes. Then it drops as well.

She's sick and then she's better and then she doesn't seem so dead anymore as he takes him in, tie wrinkled, shirt specked with vomit, face spluttered with blood and tears, both hers and his.

But she doesn't meet his gaze.

"It's not going to always be like this," he says in a milder tone than everything she has ever heard from him. "You're not some vampire. It's just… you don't eat, Granger. And well, the Veelas depend on you to live."

Her head snaps up, eyes flashing with fury.

"So what are you trying to say? Poor little monster-beings just wanted their supply of proteins?"

His lips twitch at the sound of sarcasm and the tiny House Elves huddle even closer.

Granger seems, dare he say, almost lively as her hair crackles with electricity and her face twists in anger. And with only a week left until the Mating Ceremony, Draco finally allows himself to hope.


	11. The Call

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **T**

_This just came forth and I apologies if it's crap. By the way, if you guys like these I recently updated the first chapter of a short fic and I'd be very grateful if you looked it over and very excited if you liked it._

**The Call**

Friday night.

Lonely flat.

And the phone ringing at 11:33 at night.

Hermione Granger is surprised to say the least.

The voice she hears is raspy and panicked, honeyed and desperate, trembling and deep.

The voice she hears breaks her heart and puts it back together.

The voice she hears is a contradiction.

"Granger." He's terrified and terrifying. "Hermione."

Pause. She wants to say something, but her throat is closed - is dry - is useless. In this moment, her entire body is useless.

"They're close and I don't have a wand, I just have this bloody quarter and I need to hear your voice and I'm going to die. Merlin, Granger, I'm going to die. And I know you hate me and I know I did you wrong but Hermione, I see your face in my blood dripping and I see your face behind my eyelids and I see your face when I look at the fucking sun. And I'm going to die."

The call disconnects.

And Hermione Granger, pregnant with a child on the verge of being fatherless, snatches her own wand and furiously wipes her tears. Then Disappears relying only on a feeling.

After all, she's never been one to sit home crying.


	12. Prey

**Many thanks to those of you who started following this story and a special hug for ****hoshiakari7 ****who made time to leave a comment. A follow up may be coming.**

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **T**

_This wanted to be released into the world, so I said to let it free-fall._

**Prey**

_There's hope for you yet._

…

_Potter's dead._

…

_As you wish, my liege._

…

_I'll keep you alive_

…

There are three things Astoria Malfoy hates in life.

Taking her tea without sugar.

Hosting Dark Revels in her house.

And the white dove that always sits in a cage on her husband's desk, watching the world with pitiful brown eyes.

Some days, the bird reminds her of Hermione Granger. And those are the days she tries to kill herself.


	13. Play

**Once again, many thanks to the people who started following The Persephone Files. **

**emerald eyes 1987 – thank you for your kind words. I always worry that my work lacks feeling.**

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **T**

**Play**

_She wakes up on a Monday to find her obituary in the paper and herself in Dumbledore's office. _

"_It's for the best," the old man says._

"_It's what Voldemort would do," she retorts._

…

He sees the article at breakfast and later destroys half the Room in his rage. The Vanishing Cabinet mocks him from its corner.

…

"_Draco is being coerced and you know it."_

_"Nevertheless, Mister__ Malfoy must play his part."_

"_He's **not** a puppet!"_

"_That's where you're wrong."_

…

Salvation is improbable.

His mission is impossible.

And she is gone. Forever.

…

_She's alone and able to do wandless magic and the D.A. coin is in her pocket._

…

The coin _she_ gave him burns in his hand.

…

"_Meet me…"_

…

"…in the Astronomy Tower."

…

His obituary is in the paper the next morning.

Meanwhile, for the good of the many, Dumbledore needs to find himself another puppet.

And, at the other and of the specter, so does Voldemort.


	14. Thief

**Many thanks to those of you who started following this story and a special hug for ****hoshiakari7 and eliza6801 ****who made time to leave a comment.**

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **T**

**Thief**

It was a general consensus Terry Boot gossiped like someone's sugar-high grandmother. And that morning, that fatidic morning in the November of their Seventh Year, something had him so eager and high-strung some people just couldn't help themselves anymore.

"Want me to fetch you some knitting needles, Boot? To better fit in your character and such?" Michael Corner asked in a rather self-important tone.

Two sits left, Padma Patil rolled her eyes. She _had _dated Michael at one point and knew he had no room to talk. The pot was, for all intents and purposes, making fun of the kettle. But she was a little curious herself.

As usual, Terry was unfazed.

"Did you people not hear?" He was bursting with so much barely-contained excitement Anthony Goldstein was surprised he was not yet setting off like one of Doctor Filibuster's fireworks. "Hermione Granger stole the Slytherins' coat of arms! The teacher are checking her trunk right now!"

A dozen pair of eyes turned towards him. The Boot kid might gossip like someone's sugar-high grandmother. But he always had the most delicious little rumors.

…

As it turned out, they did not find the coat of arms in the trunk.

They did not find the coat of arms anywhere near.

They did not find the coat of arms at all.

And they could not get a confession out of her.

Yes. Hermione Granger was rather pleased with her handy-work. Apart from a teeny-tiny, oh-dear-God-make-him-vanish detail.

"I know you have it, kitten."

Draco Malfoy was set to get it back.

…

_She couldn't remember a time in her life she had been drunk. She had always been respectable, thank you very much. Poised. Self-controlled. A model of the perfect student, perfect Prefect, perfect Gryffindor. A model of the perfect Hermione Granger. She was a picture of respectability, Hermione Granger. If she hadn't in fact been Hermione Granger, she would've been the more hermione-grangerish non-Hermione-Granger ever. She was that good at being Hermione Granger._

_She giggled and rocked on her heels, making the firewhisky splash over the side of the glass. Hermione Granger hadn't been drunk a day in her life. Until now. _

…

It was not his fault.

Well, maybe.

Partially.

Possibly.

Probably.

It was his bloody fault, alright?

So shove it.

…

_The obviously drunk, giggling Gryffindor trying to look inconspicuous in front of his entrance made Draco Malfoy all kinds of curious. _

"_Merlin, is that Granger?" Blaise asked from his right. "Didn't think she even knew what alcohol was for."_

_Neither had Draco._

_And, judging solely by the fact she was hiding behind a see-through tapestry, Granger hadn't given the whole getting smashed business a second thought until tonight either._

"_Go on," he told Blaise. "I'm going to have a little fun."_

_Granger's eyes followed him as he entered, muttering to herself_

"_Must get in," she mumbled. "Must complete dare. Must show them. Show them all."_

_She gave a drunk, maniacal laugh._

_**Subtle**__, Draco thought. __**But promising**__._

…

He was waiting for her at the bathroom door. That's what he been reduced to.

Bloody coat of arms.

Bloody alcohol.

Bloody Granger.

And bloody Boot kid watching him like a hawk. He reminded Draco of his Grandmother Malfoy after eating one-too-many cupcakes.


	15. Legends of Witchcraft - Part 1

**Many thanks to those of you who started following this story and a special hug for ****AwaitTheRise ****who made time to leave a comment.**

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **T**

**So this was once upon a time an idea for a fic that didn't quite work out so I'm going to make it a series of drabbles. Meaning there will be more of these. I would really appreciate if you made time to comment ^_^**

**Legends of witchcraft**

**1.**

The last time she had seen Draco Malfoy, he had left his words to rot inside her mind.

**2.**

"_You think magic is a gene, Mudblood? You think everything is as simple as your muggle-science theory makes it out to be? What is it that you believe, that all it takes is two people to carry it inside them? That those like you are a recessive thing, like a pair of blue eyes, like 0 negative blood? You live in a world where Squibs are an exception to the rule? Where Metamorphmagus abilities are happy genetic accidents? You're not stupid Granger. You know. You have to know. __**The Legends of witchcraft**__ are real. Everything is real, even that Beedle the Bard nonsense you so desperately cling to."_

**3.**

They haunt her.

_"Open your fucking eyes, Granger. You think the worst in over?"_

**4.**

She doesn't know peace these days.

Not from her family.

Not from her friends.

Not from the media.

Not from this world they had created that had just reversed its prejudice.

**5.**

She's no society darling.

She thinks too much.

Talks too much.

Fights too much.

Does everything to much.

Hermione doesn't know how to be a pretty doll on their pretty shelf.

**6.**

Some days, she feels like a china shepherdess.

Immobile.

Insignificant.

Like even the tiniest push could shatter her.

**7.**

_**The Legends of Witchcraft **__are real_.

His voice whispers to her nightmares.

**8.**

The prophecy is glossed over, like everything that could crumble their utopia.

But it'll happen. Oh, how it'll happen.

**9.**

They're attacked in plain day, she and Theo, and for a moment all she can do is stare and sweat and wonder how it'll be, dying and not existing and not knowing.

**10.**

The mantra inside her mind is infinite.

_This is not the War. This is not the War. This is not the War._

And she reacts.

**11.**

She's suddenly a danger and it's in every paper.

**12.**

**PUREBLOOD EXTREMISTS OR CONCERNED CITIZENS?**

Rita has a field day.

**13\. **

From his hiding spot, Draco studies the attack from every angle.

"Now for the birth."

And so it begins.


	16. Legends of Witchcraft - Part 2

**Please read and review^_^**

**Legends of Witchcraft **

**-part 2-**

_**Written in the Stars**_

**14.**

Draco thinks quite a lot about it, the night the universe bowed to his will.

_The stars are thirsty tonight, Master Malfoy._

He hadn't agreed back then. He had thought the stars were lovely.

I turned out they were just so.

Lovely and hypnotic and asking for his blood.

**15.**

Sometimes Firenze thinks about it too, the night he saw the sky boiling its destruction.

He mostly remembers in moments like this, when the gracious curve of Cygnus neck threatens the very idea of existence and when Orion seems ready to fall out of its place and conquer the unconquerable.

In moments like this, when Bellatrix's light is so pure it swallows the darkness out of the dark, he feels the world fighting with itself.

**16.**

"I think you should stay with us a few more days."

"Because you just love my cherry pie?"

"Because I think you're safer here than anywhere near your own home."

Daphne pauses for a moment to cut another piece that overflows with cherry filling.

"But your pie ain't bad either, Granger. We might as well keep you."

**17.**

**WEASLEY BREAKS THE SILENCE IN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW!**

**POTTER REFUSES TO COMMENT!**

**18.**

They hadn't wanted to let her out of the hospital at first. Too many streets full of too many concerned citizens.

Too much danger.

Too much Hermione.

_"You want to talk about unprofessional? It's unprofessional to keep me here for mental exams when you know it's not a damn thing wrong with my mind. It's unprofessional to try to place the blame for the attack on me rather than to accept that things aren't going smoothly under the watchful eyes of Head Auror Potter. It's fucking unethical to let Rita Skeeter belittle me all the time just so the Ministry could maintain their wonderful façade and keep throwing the blame on their favorite scapegoats. Well, not this time. I can go home. I __**am**__ going home and there's not a thing you can do to stop me."_

**19.**

Ron's words hurt, she isn't going to lie.

_"Granger changed after the war. Her sweet, caring side completely vanished. I think she just couldn't cope with life going back to normal, so she threw herself in fighting for all the wrong causes. Our society is on its way to brilliant times, but she just cannot see it. I am glad I ended our relationship before I could also be dragged down."_

But Harry's silence, Harry's unwillingness to defend her hurts even more.

**20.**

"_You won't find what you're looking for in this part of the forest, young Master Malfoy."_

**21.**

"_While in the company of Ex-Death-Eater Theodore Nott the used-to-be best friend of the Boy-Who-Lived was surrounded by a group of supposed pureblood extremists. The war heroine is quite convinced they were attempting an attack, however none of the seven - now in the Aurors' jurisdiction - can give a statement about the incident seeing how their memories have been wiped clean."_

"_Granger seems to believe she is responsible for it through wandless magic"_

"_Has the famous bookworm finally broken down under the pressure? Have her past mistakes caught up with her? And what do Weasley and Potter have to say about this?"_

**22.**

Theo had taken it in strides.

"_Certifiable, huh? Why? Are you going back to Weasel or something?"_

**23.**

No, but as it turns out, Ron still has things to get out of his system.

"_I don't have anything to say other than the fact that I'm shocked people like them are even allowed to breed... Nott's place is behind the bars with his father… I don't buy the America story for a moment… He got reed of the Mark somehow… Greengrass too… a whore like her… that kid shouldn't be allowed to live in our society… we don't need another You-Know-Who on our hands… I'm only looking out for all the decent wizards and witches and…"_

**24.**

The papers are full of crap these days, Draco knows, but his heart soars as he reads the newest title.

**GINNY POTTER ANNOUNCES PREGNANCY! **

In other part of the country, Hermione feels hers contracting. Then it passes.

They're just memories from the other life she used to live and she lets them slide downhill.


	17. Amnesia

**AwaitTheRise**** – of course I mentioned you. Every reader is important and every review is like a paycheck filled with love. So how could I not mention you, really? Also, please be my bestie, cause you understand me ^_^ No troll, no friendship, indeed. **

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **T**

**A.N.: I promise The Legends of Witchcraft would make sense in time. Or at least they'll try to make sense**

**Amnesia**

The Ministry official offers to Obliviate him, but the truth is he's too much of a coward to accept.

So he watches it all, his wand being snapped and his house being burned to the ground and his possessions being destroyed or donated and his life crumbling around him without as much as a muscle twitching.

And when he's locked on the other side of the Leaky Cauldron, forever banished from the world that played him like a puppet in its war, he doesn't have it in him to regret that decision.

Not when he still has things.

Money for a month.

A little apartment, so small he calls it _The Matchbox._

A job at a library, so poorly paid there are no chances of alcohol these days.

Which is not really a problem. Not at all.

Not when he still has his memories of her to drown in them at night.


	18. Jurassic

**HopeWithinDarkness **– I don't think you understand how happy you made me with all those comments! Hugs!

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **T**

**Reviews keep me happy, keep me writing, keep me sane (I'm exaggerating here, but still)**

* * *

**Jurassic**

There's a sort of transcendental quiet to the undisturbed nature. A kind of beauty that can never be copied. A peace that would soothe the most wounded soul and still have peacefulness to give.

One might say a state like that is too perfect to exist. One might say a state like that was meant to be broken.

#

They pop up out of nowhere and fill the jungle with their shouting.

"This is all your fault, you semi-albino ferret!"

"Mine? Mine?! I'm the fucking idiot who wore a Time-Turner to class? Tell me, _Beaver_dot, am I?"

"No, you're just the twat who broke it over a Water-Clock Potion!"

"You fell over the cauldron!"

"You pushed me!"

Then they see the dinosaur approaching. And an altogether different kind of shouting ensues.

#

There are a few things you need to adjust to when you suddenly have to live in prehistoric times, so Draco thanks Merlin (who hasn't been born yet, but still!) rather daily that he's always been a fast learner.

First things first, everything – and he does mean everything – is out to get you. The butterflies. The grass. Even the bushy-haired, hairbrush-deprived, know-it-all woman you have to share a sleeping-cave with. Stretch that. Especially the bushy-haired, hairbrush-deprived, know-it-all woman you have to share a sleeping-cave with.

And there is something to be said about the woman's inventivity in her quest to bring him down _(or she might just be a lousy cook)_, especially in times where nothing reasonable has been invented yet. No bathroom. No beds. No house-elves, for goodness sake!

_(Here is the part where Granger just must inform him that house-elves are living, breathing creatures, appearing through the natural process of evolution as free rightfully-equal beings who should never have been enslaved by… syrupy pancakes? He's sure that's not what Granger had said, but he might have stopped listening somewhere close to… the very beginning? It was a long rent, in his defense. And he was rather hungry.)_

Secondly, everything – and he does mean everything – is scary. The non-fire-breathing dragons. (_Dinosaurs, how many times must I tell you?)_. The huge bat-like chickens that fly through the sky and lay eggs bigger than Draco, which apparently means no omelet. (_Ptero… That's disgusting!_) His cave mate. Has he mentioned his cave mate yet? _(Yes, you have, and if you do it one more time, so help me!)_

And thirdly, everything – but he doesn't really mean everything – keeps disappearing. The cute, almost normal squirrel that used to jump in the trees surrounding them. _(It had fangs as big as its body! __**Well so did you in fourth year!**__). _The big tiger that kept circling around their entrance, snarling every time he caught a glimpse of Draco and which, to be perfectly honest, he isn't exactly crying after. _(**Of course you thought it was kind of sweet, your cat probably evolved right from this one.**)_ Everything apart from Granger, who cooks dinner and insists he dusts the cave _(Can he spell mental? Sure he can!) _and looks rather lovely with the sun shining on her hair as she prattles on and on about potions that could get them back and Time-Turners and who fills quite well that new dress she charmed out of leaves and…

_(What do you mean we better leave before the asteroid hits?!)_


	19. The Marked and the Betrayer

**eliza6801** – thank you:*

**HopeWithinDarkness **– yes, Draco out of his comfort zone is probably Draco at his best. And I never read something with them as far back either. I think the idea of doing something semi-original actually made me even happier while writing

**hoshiakari7** – glad you enjoyed:* between you and me, they probably make it back just as the asteroid approaches Earth and the last thing the dinosaurs hear is Draco screaming his head off. But that is just a theory.

**AwaitTheRise** – me has bestie . me so happy. Totally agree, Dramione would have made a better ending. Plus, it would have been a great step toward showing how far the wizarding world has come regarding prejudice. This and the portrayal of the Slytherin House make me very angry, actually. Honestly, my Deathly Hallows is Bex-chan's Isolation. I just think is so perfect.

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **T**

**A.N: since today I updated The Marked and the Betrayer and this didn't make the final cut, I thought I would post it here. Hope you people don't mind.**

* * *

**The Marked and the Betrayer**

They want to send him back to his cell after that.

_They_.

Potter.

Potter's He-Weasley.

And some boys – men – boys he remembers from school but can't possibly name. Probably never could, either way. Too unimportant. Too far on the outskirts of his radar. Too Gryffindor, he supposes.

People who don't know better. People he doesn't expect to know better.

Of course, even the people who should be wiser are nothing so.

The other "they".

Lupin.

Moody.

Mother Weasley.

Father Weasley.

Others.

He's sure they too have names and he's sure he doesn't know them.

They want to lock him up and throw away the metaphorical key and they don't even want to use him, not a little bit and not a lot either. They _don't want_ to _use_ him. They're stupid like that.

Then again, he's fucking crazy and in their mad world they don't want, don't need, _can't_ accept more insanity. They're not _that_ stupid, he suspects, but still they are. He should be used, used until he bleeds and until there's nothing left of him because he's crazy and lethal and a fatal weapon but it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen, they won't see it happen. They _are that stupid, _he decides.

All sans her.

The unafraid user.

The shameless logician.

The "they minus one".

Granger.

Her name bears repeating.

Granger.

She puts her foot down or so he believes as they do their best to keep the appearance of a common ground before him. They shouldn't bother with it, really. It's there for everyone to see it, in the wrinkles around her mouth, in Potter's bloodshot stare, in Moody's madder than ever magic eye.

They are not a united front and the vision of their divide it's hurting his mind.


	20. Macabre

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **T**

* * *

**Macabre**

It's been long, the war, long and lonely and cold and in its aftermath there's the wrong sort of silence settling.

"You betrayed me, flower," the snake-man hisses, all calmness and smugness, all venom and fangs.

The woman is beautiful like the coolest day of December.

And his Death Eaters thrive on beauty and its sullying.

…

The son is forced to watch for the pleasure of the many, a twisted turn on for the circle of the worthy.

The husband is forced to be the first and the last to take her and to beg for her life and be granted it and in the end he's forced to kill her, this daughter of the Ancient House he took as lover and as wife, to hold and to cherish.

It's his own vow that kills him in the end.

The magic, it seems, is not for cowards to dabble in.

…

The snake-man is all sweetness as he orders he be whipped.

"The Muggle way, my boy, as your mother _surely _would have wanted."

So he is blooded by hand and bloodied by wand and his mind is filthy from all the things he saw and it twists on itself, this itching brain of his, forever seared with the macabre.

…

They throw him out with his mother's corpse and with his father's head and with the little life he still has in his body, laughing and cheering, these people who had won.

The outside is frozen and chilling, like an early grave dug on the northern shores and it's for a minute, for just a blissful minute, that he contemplates dying and basks in its cold glory.

But it's been a cold, cold War and he has had enough of iciness and a hot, hot cup brimming with revenge? – he almost feels alive while craving it.

…

He spits in his father's mutilated face and cries over his mother's destroyed body and then he leaves, leaves for less than for a long time, leaves to find if vengeance is wandering these woods.

He finds it, too, impersonated by a girl, a scared, scared girl with scarred, scarred arms and though hate each they do, they're also two rabid animals released into the woods and take this world by storm and the one after.


	21. Wonderland

**AwaitTheRise ****– only good thoughts, bestie, world domination yada, yada**

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own "Alice in Wonderland" either, in case you were wondering.

**Rating: **I would say a **T**

**N.A. A strange little something**

* * *

**Wonderland**

Falling down through the mirror had been nothing, but then again falling down is never really difficult.

_So how do I get back?_ she asks the strangely plump, strangely menacing, strangely untrustworthy Professor Dumbledore she finds.

_You fall back up, of course, _he tell her like is the most simple, most natural, most logical thing in the world.

So she tries, she tries hard, she really, really does, and jumps and flips her hands and cries and curses and nothing, absolutely nothing useful comes out of this parade.

_You're doing it wrong,_ Professor McGonagall says not lacking contempt._ Do it like this,_ and she turns into a bird and flies up and when she's just barely there, she returns. _You see?_

_But you're still here! _she wants to scream and the answer, even if the words were just inside her mind, still comes.

_Of course I am, you stupid girl, this is where I belong._

And Hermione doesn't, not barely, not at all, but wasn't that terribly clear from the start?

_You have to __**let **__yourself fall up, _a strangely sluggish, strangely sticky, strangely decorative Slughorn joins the conversation.

And she wants to snap that Minerva just flew, damn it, and that there's no such thing as falling _up_ and are they all crazy? But then it occurs to her that McGonagall should be a cat after all, not a bird, not loot, and that shuts her up right there.

…

She ends up staying, naturally.

_Until you learn to fall up_, they mumble, but that might never happen, that could never happen, that will probably never happen, because things just do not do that in her neatly ordered brain.

…

She takes time to study it, this world, this land that's down the looking glass, this serenely different Wonderland to her atypical Alice and it isn't long until she discovers it, that everyone is a reflection of their souls in here.

She labels them all carefully, the malnourished Ronald and the lion-headed Harry and the beautiful, serene, winged with milky-white feathers Luna and sometimes she wonders why there is no bookish, word-ish, made out of paper Hermione to sleep on dusty, sturdy shelves in this Hogwarts' Library.

She doesn't wonder too much, though, as she does not enjoy the answer, but keeps it all in there, in the back of her mind, for much delayed, though foreseeable enough usage.

…

_This world,_ he tells her, this still aristocratic, still ethereal, still unchanged from the one she knew boy. _You could just take it for yourself._

_What right do I have? _she asks, taking in his face, the eyes devoid of hate, the felt hat staying just so on the crown of his blond head.

_What right do you need? No one else had ever fallen through the Looking Glass before._

…

They call her Queen these days, this chosen-by-the-Mirror girl who is not able to fall up.

Her Red Majesty.

Her Soulless Grace.

Their Dear, So Strange Lady.

They hope she'll never learn to leave. What for? The other side, you say? Oh, dear, but they're all mad in there.


	22. Part of Your World

**HopeWithinDarkness **– stop making me blush!

**SmoothFluffle**– why, thank you

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Double Disclaimer: **I don't own "The Little Mermaid" in any of its forms

**Rating: **I would say a **T**

**A.N.** This is all my mind could create after last week, so sorry if you think it is stupid, but I actually kind of like it.

**Also, please, if you read and like or have constructive advice, leave me a review. It would make me feel tones better and honestly, it's the only pay I'm getting. **

* * *

**Part of Your World**

**1.**

The first time he had seen her, his fins had just barely appeared and breathing was only possible trough his gills. He had watched her from the safety and familiarity of the underwater - while she had wobbled around on that silly double tail, her curls fluttering like a jellyfish's tentacles in an undercurrent - and he had cringed at the high screeches she had made while splashing everything in sight from her spot at the very edge of the ocean.

"What is she saying, can you understand?" he had whispered to Nimbus, who kept poking him with his snot.

His trusted dolphin had emitted a high sound of his own.

"Another dialect? French Riviera? I see." Draco had shrugged it off. Abovers. They were the strangest little pets.

**2.**

The second time, his father had accompanied him.

"Is this where you spend your days?" he had sneered, swishing his tail in fury. "Seeking Humans? _Abovers?_ A son of mine, a land-lover?"

And he had been forbidden from ever watching her again.

**3.**

He had done it, though ,sneaking around to catch a glimpse of Human Girl and her strange tail and her foreign, emancipated screeches.

In time, his gills had adapted and his head had emerged through the thin sheet of water that poorly separated their worlds and he had seen her undistorted and less bluish and sun-kissed beautiful, if ever so strange.

**4.**

She had waved to him from her spot on the beach and, caught off-guard, he had waved back just to dive under a second too late. _Abovers_, he had repeated to himself. _Muddy, undeveloped poor things._

**5.**

"Oh, my God!"

To this day, he is not sure how she had sneaked behind him through the water, but there she was, with her head cocked to the side, mouth half-open, brows furrowed in confusion, eyes glued to his tail.

She lifted a finless hand, pointed a finger at him and shook it a few times. Then she exclaimed in a pretty non-French Riviera, not at all dolphin-like pattern of speech.

""Oh my God! Ariel?!"

**6.**

"So you're telling me a racist, aristocratic, half-fish minority is living in our oceans, riding dolphins and enslaving seahorses, all the while looking down at us and calling as Mud? Do you Atlantis wannabes have any idea what we throw in these waters?"

**7.**

He was under the impression she tried to catch him off-guard.

"_What would I give If I could live out of…?_ No? Never you mind."

She was a bizarre one. And tone-deaf to boot.

**8.**

One day, he asked her if she would like to visit his home and she declined and smiled and, guessing his deep-buried wish, came bearing a golden fruit that gave him a double-tail and lungs.

"Come on, Little Mer_Draco_," she said with a smirk. "I'll let you be part of my world."

And he went.


	23. Plague

**niknik0201 **** \- glad you enjoyed**

**hoshiakari7 ****– thank you**

**SmoothFluffle ****\- I think I saw that one too! The 13****th**** year or something like that.**

**Disclaimer: **"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling. This is written entirely for fun and I am not making any profit.

**Rating: **I would say a **T**

_A.N. I'm very aware this isn't the best thing ever but it's all the Dramione I've been able to write lately. Comments are always appreciated._

**Plague**

They said _let her go._ They said_ she's just a Mudblood._ _A smart Mudblood,_ some felt the need to observe but those were quickly shushed for after all_ a smart Mudblood is hardly more than a trained ape _and_ she'll just disappear like a rat off a sinking ship._

And they were wrong.

For when she saw her world crumbling and her friends die and when her life valued far less than the dirt they said she had running through her veins, she threw away the long, long spoon she had used until that point and picked up the shortest one she could find and went, went far away, as far away as she could go and signed a treaty with the devil.

And what a treaty it was.

"He'll make away with you," she told the other woman, the pretty, pretty woman who'd wrench hearts out of chests for the well-being of her family.

"It's a fool's errand," the son said. "Why are you still fighting?"

But he didn't oppose her plan and they indeed wedded and maybe that was a sign that he was on a fool's errand himself.

They married on a clear night, tied together by the bloodiest blood rite they could find and he cut above his Dark Mark to draw red magic and she drank it. And the spell of the Dark Lord passed into her veins.

_She's nothing more than a scared rat,_ they said and let her go. And she came back, vicious as the plague, and turned his mind control against himself.

For she's a smart trained ape, Hermione Granger.

_Jump, Tom,_ she told him from the safety of her hiding, Narcissa Malfoy drinking her tea and nibbling on biscuits nearby. _Just jump. Aren't you tired, Tom? Don't you want to rest, Tom? Don't you want to feel the ultimate power of Death, Tom? Don't you want to possess it, Tom?_

Until one day, he let himself be swallowed by the insanity she poured.

And jumped.


	24. The heart Wants

**niknik0201** – thanks for reading

_A.N. I'm starting to think I'm losing the little touch I had. But I like Veela stories. So I write them. Just not well. ha ha_

**The Heart Wants**

Unsurprisingly, Draco blamed Potter.

"_You're the most renewed Healer in England," Narcissa Malfoy thundered, making the jovial round man cower in fear. "I brought you here to do something, not to shuffle your feet and tell me this is the most reasonable solution!"_

Also unsurprisingly, it was, in fact, Potter's fault.

"… _that __**thing's **__heart into my son?"_

He was a wizard, for Merlin's sake! There was no need to constantly act like a wandering baboon who had stumbled upon a magic stick!

"_I expect there will be… consequences?"_

What sort of idiot even contemplated casting spells he had no clue about?

"_Might show hybrid tendencies, you say."_

That's all it took.

A bad afternoon, the wrong Potions' book into the wrong hands and unbelievably stupid, unbelievably revered Potter.

A Sectumsempra later, Draco was being prepared for a heart transfer; and from a dying Veela, nonetheless.

…

The changes were subtle.

Or maybe they weren't, really, but when you spend the majority of your time planning to kill the Headmaster of the school, all while keeping your grades up to impossible Malfoy standards, you're bound not to notice the pesky little inconveniencies happening around.

For a fact, girls had always liked Draco. It was not like he had gone overnight from Goyle to Zabini in the "sought out" department.

And, while the Amortentia might have been a little bit disconcerting, it wasn't like Millicent or Tracey hadn't tried that route a few dozen times before either. Though twice a day seemed a bit excessive, what with the time for engagement contracts to be drawn fast approaching and with his nervous breakdowns becoming more and more frequent, he somehow managed to ignore it.

The hoarding might have been another sign if Draco hadn't aptly convinced himself it was just the constant stress he was under. All of a sudden, his room in the Slytherin's dungeons started transforming into the Room of Hidden Things when he began bringing back all pieces that stroke his fancy. After seven embroidered blankets, six black satin pillows and one plush toy he absolutely refused to think about managed to find their way onto his bed, he should have probably caught on to what was happening. But happy, as they say, is the blind.

Draco was, in a word, nesting. He just shouldn't, wouldn't, couldn't admit it. Not even to himself.

...

The wings were undeniable proof.

Oh, he would have found a way to ignore those, of course.

It was just hard, you see, for they were sprouting from his back rather inconveniently.

…

"_If we're lucky," the Healer seemed to want the ground to swallow him already, "he wouldn't manifest the mating tendencies."_

…

But Draco wasn't lucky.

He was a slave-boy, a useless weapon and an unblinking murderer he was not.

Draco was the very definition of unlucky.

So the fact that it just so happened to be Granger?

It wasn't even that big of a surprise, after all.


	25. Hive king

10 reviews?! You people are the best_est. _Not just the best. The best_est. _Because sometimes superlatives are not enough. ha ha

**eliza6801**** \- **Being honest, I wasn't intending to. But, since your request, I've been mulling in over and I might or not have written half of a first chapter. *insert whistling here because reasons*. If it continues to go well, I plan on posting it once I have like 5 chapters written. Sounds good?

**Chester99 **\- If I actually manage to transform this into a fic, I think that'll happen. I always found annoying how Harry just got away with a Sectumsempra. Like, he had detention. Boo hoo.

**HopeWithinDarkness** \- Hooray for Little Mermaid feels! We should all get them once in a while. As for my ways...mmm, it just, happens? No idea. But thank you *blush*

**hoshiakari7** \- thank you!

**niknik0201** \- thank you too!

**Guest** \- I'm trying to make a fic out of it. Sort of.

**smartgirl95** \- Once upon a time, you asked: "Where's my thank you?". So thank you! Not sure why though _

**ChiffonShock** \- Hope that great story will happen.

_N.A. Now you people should continue being awesome and supportive and review. Even if this is the strangest piece of everything I have ever writte. Ever. It's from the perspective of bees. BEES!_

**Hive King**

When the man made of light came, we followed him in a War that wasn't our own.

"You'll help us win," he told us while we surrounded him and discovered he had darkness.

And we did.

"This sign," he said, showing us his arm made of light with the mark made of darkness embedded on it. "Destroy them, all that carry this sign."

And we did.

"Her hair," the man described while we basked in his light. "Her hair is like honeycombs. Bring her to me."

And we did.

"You used bees?" she asked incredulously. "All you had to do was stay hidden in a safe house and you tamed bees?"

"Honey?" he lazily offered her and the light he was constructed of centered in a pair of stormy eyes.


	26. Pixie Dust

**Guest **\- thanks!

**niknik0201 **\- glad you think they're creative. They just come to me, I guess. I think the majority are pretty dry to be honest.

_**A.N**_**.** _It's been a while, huh? But I wrote a Prologue and Chapter 1 for a fic after the drabble The Heart Wants and I had problems with my laptop on top of it all, so... Am I forgiven? _

* * *

**Pixie Dust**

Cliché as it might sound, Hermione knows something is wrong from the first moment she is up and evidence of that fact is everywhere. Is in the way her fingers are clenched around the flimsy fabric of her pillowcase. Is in how the queasy feeling pooling in her stomach just can't be shaken away by a bitter cup of sugar-free lemonade. Is in the missing limb sensation that succumbs through every pore to the depths of her very soul.

Is in her shadow that jumps across the wall out of sheer own will, without any mechanical help for her unmoving body, without any consideration for the deer in the headlights look she sports upon seeing it, in some macabre Peter Pan imitation that doesn't seem at all funny now that it's truly happening.

She watches in fascinated terror for a moment, how _it_ does some combination of waltz, polka and interpretative dancing above the mantelpiece, how _it_ stops from time to time to flick its tongue at her and shake an equally-shadowy imitation of her wand, how it laughs a laugh she can actually _hear _(and how is that even possible?) until _it_ gets bored and jumps out the window. And there she is left, Hermione Granger, War Heroine, part-time librarian, sugar-feathers addict, on the sly watcher of all things Disney, staring desperately after her shadow.

Hasn't she read something about how it's never good to be lacking one of those?

Fuck.

…

At night, shadow-less and cranky, she returns home to find Malfoy sitting on her welcome mat, eating ice-cream and watching the opposite wall with not-at-all ambiguous contempt.

"I'm suing your shadow for kidnapping," he informs her and Hermione turns toward the white surface just to catch the stupid mass of darkness she's been searching for all day scratching a shadow puppy's belly in the company of annoying, ferrety, grayish and featureless Malfoy.

"Where did they even get a dog?" she asks.

"They called it Nana," he offers. "And we should consider ourselves lucky, really. She also tried to take my father."

"No gallivanting around with Mudblood shadows, I take it?"

"Smoky Malfoys still have standards," Draco sniffs. "Or so said the man who thought Voldemort a savior."

…

"This is not good, Miss Granger and Mister Malfoy," Professor Flitwick informs them in absolute seriousness. "A man without a shadow is almost a man without magic. You must make them come back."

"But how? We don't even know how they left."

"Magic is tricky like that," the old Professor answers. "Sometimes, it takes unfulfilled wishes in its own hands. Any such things you might know about?"

At the way they avert their gazes, he smirks.

…

"Here, Shadow Shadow Shadow. I have fulfilled wishes for you," Draco tries as they re-enter her apartment.

"It's not a dog, Malfoy!"

"Talk for yourself, Granger," he haughtily defends. "I happen to think my Shadow looks rather canine."

Hermione snorts. "To think I wasn't even the one to say it."

…

"Well," he points out, "I guess we'll better start with those wishes, right?"

"Should I bring out the pixie dust?" she snorts.

"No need, Granger. Strip."

…

"To think it worked," Hermione muses, head on his chest, legs over his.

"I'm not surprised at all," Draco states. "I _am_ the stuff dreams are made of."

* * *

**AN 2. Is someone (preferably someone who has read and commented on more than one of this drabbles and that has a Beta profile) willing to be an Alpha Reader? Just to look that Prologue and Chapter I've been talking about over and offer an honest opinion? As long as the person in cause is aware that it's still in a rough stage and actions and reactions might still change. If you are interested, please PM me**


	27. And the space-time continuum

prompt: **broken clock**

* * *

**1996**

"_Hermione, I know you don't want it to be like this but – Last time you snuck in to look for the thing, Harry almost set the Room on fire, Ron alerted the entire castle of your presence and you three barely managed not to send the tunnel toppling down on your heads. Face it. We want the Horcrux, we need someone who understands that place."_

_Hermione slumped her shoulders, defeated. Draco Malfoy it was._

**5.04 a.m. 1996**

If in that precise moment someone held the tip of a wand to his head with no more than a question and an Avada ready on the lips, Draco would die. His life would pause right there with no rewind button, be honest to Merlin done and over, end as if someone had cut the film of the camera in half, and he would die – _dead, Malfoy, dead – _because he wouldn't be able to tell what was worse - being simply stuck in the Room of Hidden Things by himself or being stuck in the Room of Hidden Things with Hermione Granger of all people.

He was still stuck, one would say, so what was the big difference? It was. It was a Granger level of a difference, a barely 100 pounds soaking wet difference, a pale, worn out, all ribs and skin difference, and she seemed to occupy the entire room like a chatterbox of a shadow.

She huffed.

She puffed.

She nagged.

Circe, did she ever nag.

**5.03 a.m. - 1996**

" – just that – I mean, it's _fine _that you need a charm to tie your laces, Malfoy, that's your upbringing, lazy and comfort-oriented, I'm not judging. And it's _not fine_ that you need a house-elf to spread your marmalade on toast, but that is, again, your upbringing and, though I _might _judge you a little for that one – what I don't understand is – you almost _lived_ in here last year! Look! I can still see your dried drool on that couch! And that's the stupid cabinet you stupidly repaired just over stupid there! I thought you knew this Room!"

And Circe did Draco ever want to _strangle_ her.

He had just opened his mouth to finally spit some of the vitriol that kept gathering under his tongue when –

**5.02 a.m. - 1996**

"What's that?"

Granger's glance followed the beefy finger of an equally beefy hand all the way to a dusty object thrown on a pile of sherry bottles – looking for all it was worth like a tipsy crown on a more than just tipsy head – and clucked her tongue, full of impatience.

"It's a mantle clock," she said dismissively. "You _have_ to know that. There's one in every room in this school. Classrooms. Studies. Bloody bathroom." Granger shrugged. "Everywhere, really." Goyle, decidedly unimpressed, gave her a withering look, so self-righteous Draco barely chocked back a laugh. He knew what was coming. Hell, his years of minion lording were probably responsible for what was coming. "You're lying because you think I'm stupid," Greg accused. "It's not a mantle clock. It doesn't have a mantle."

Granger blinked. And blinked. And blinked. Then "And what you said are not words. You obviously have no brain to produce them."

**5.01 a.m. - 1996**

There were few worse things than being stuck in the Room of Hidden Things with Hermione Granger of all people but there were a million better options he could think of. One of them was being stuck in the Room of Hidden Things with Hermione Granger and Gregory Goyle, mostly because, if he had to go down hunting for the maniacal Dark Lord's equally maniacal Horcrux, he'd rather do it watching Granger sputtering in shock.

**5.00 a.m. - 1996**

There were five bits of sound echoing through the Room, a window shattering over and over again slowly in their ears.

"I swear," Draco whispered. "It rang six five minutes ago." Then a door opened.

**5.00 a.m. - 1945**

Tom Riddle leant with his back against the trolls' tapestry on the fifth floor, the Common Room's mantel clock mostly deconstructed in his lap, his wand taping cautiously against the mercury-like liquid flooding its insides. It had taken him _months _to narrow it down but he was pretty sure this was the one Slytherin had written about. He was also pretty sure the charm he'd put on the Time Turner fluid would accelerate things nicely. Undoing the Universe was good and all but he had no intention of waiting for it to happen in _real time._

**5.01 a.m. - 1945**

"Why do we have to do it here?" the other boy moaned, puffing into his tinged with blue hands. "It's cold as fuck, My Lord."

Tom sighed. Archibald Goyle had no magical aptitudes to show, no basic understanding of social niceties, no rational sense of fear or functional survivor's instinct, and, Tom was almost certain on this last one, not two brain cells to valuably rub together in the empty cavern of his head. It was truly demoralising his Arithmancy calculations seemed confusedly ambiguous on the certainty of his presence.

**5.02 a.m. – 1945**

An abstract point in the space-time continuum was what he needed and a better fitting place than this one he couldn't quite imagine. Lifting off the floor and dusting his robes, Tom willed the door of the Room into existence

**5.03 a.m. – 1945**

Goyle returned with the clock in his hand, an expression both sullen and conflicted etched on his beefy face.

"You need to rethink your strategy," he said. "There's no mantle to put a mantle clock on in there."

This minion business was _what_ needed serious rethinking, Tom decided.

**5.04 a.m. – 1945**

He pushed open the door again to find himself face to face with a carbon copy of Abraxas and smiled.

**1944**

_Tom Riddle poured over his Arithmancy maps with brows furrowed and an unpleasant frown carved into his skin. He didn't like it, the way his lines went blurry and fuzzy, the way his results fluctuated all over the place. He needed the future to tell him more, he decided. That's when he remembered about Slytherin's broken clock._

* * *

**_I had originally put this into a different collection but I think it sits better here, even if it's not theoretically a romantic relationship. Thank you all for your comments, they were lovely._**


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